


A Series of Tasteful Nudes

by Emotionally Compromised Robots (CDRomelle)



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Body Worship, Canon Compliant, M/M, Oral Sex, Orgasm Denial, Possible Blasphemy?, Sort Of, Unintentional Teasing, a lot of adoring descriptions of Nicky's penis, misuse of art history, references to Saint Sebastian, semi-intentional teasing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:28:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28534431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CDRomelle/pseuds/Emotionally%20Compromised%20Robots
Summary: Sometimes Joe is so struck by Nicky's beauty that he has to stop what he's doing and sketch him. Nicky wouldn't mind so much, except thathe'swhat Joe had been doing, and his patience is wearing thin.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 23
Kudos: 219





	1. 1730, drawing, charcoal on paper

**Author's Note:**

> Upped the rating from M to E because of oral sex. Also, possibly, Christian blasphemy 😳

"Touch yourself." 

"Come back here and touch me yourself." 

Yusuf narrowed his eyes, his eyebrows twisting up. "Nicky."

Nicky, stretched out on their bed, bathed in the dappled golden light of early dusk and nothing else, sighed in resignation, took his penis in one large, blunt-fingered hand, and stroked himself. 

"A little more," said Yusuf, just as naked, his eyes darting between Nicky and the sketch pad on his knees as he sat on a small chair across the room. "Get it back to how it was." 

"How it was?" Nicky said mildly, in his feigning-ignorance voice. "How it was when?"

A little indulgent smile twisted Yusuf's mouth as he sketched. "How it was just now." 

"Hm." Nicky blinked. "Oh, you mean when we were having sex?"

Yusuf changed his tactic. "Please, Nicky," he wheedled. "You just looked so beautiful." 

"Of course, of course." Nicky tugged himself one more time, then let his arm fall back to its position by his side. He was on his back, hips and torso just tilted in Yusuf's direction, and the light from the window behind him kissed every curve and angle of him: the ripples of his shoulders, the curve of his biceps, the divot of his hips, the gentle stretch of his long legs. His dark brown hair had become a corona, the shorter hairs on his belly and groin and legs like fiery gold. 

How could Yusuf not have stopped their lovemaking to draw him, to carve this perfect moment on his heart? 

"Move your left foot just a bit—yes. Hold that pose." 

"There is something else I would rather hold," said Nicky mildly, his expression unchanged from the neutral, relaxed look he had perfected two hundred years ago in Venice and Florence. 

"You are a marvelous model," Yusuf breathed. "That's it, just like that… You're so beautiful." 

Nicky's dick twitched. He shifted his hips, his lips parting on a soft inhale. 

"Stop moving," said Yusuf. 

Nicky released his breath. His hips stilled as he cut his gaze to the side, fixing Yusuf with that penetrating stare. 

"Eyes forward," Yusuf said. 

Nicky held his gaze a moment longer, then did as he was told. His nose cast a shadow on his cheek, a sharp contrast to the dagger of light on the ridge of his cheekbone. Yusuf's pencil shaded in its twin on the sketchpad and then traced downward, its touch as intimate as if it were Yusuf's own hand. The grayish-white of the paper was a travesty compared to the golden of Nicky's sun-bathed skin. Maybe a sketch wasn't enough, he thought, filling in the cords of Nicky's neck, the soft curve of his belly, maybe this needed to be a painting. Where were his oils? 

Nicky's cock had softened again. "Touch yourself again, my love," Yusuf said absently, shading the curve of his testicles. 

Nicky exhaled through his nose, and made no movement. 

"Nicky…" 

"I was told not to move."

"Please, Nicky, I need you at full hardness." 

"Hm," said Nicky. He wrapped his hand around himself again, but didn't move. "I was fully hard, wasn't I." 

Yusuf couldn't help the soft smile that tugged at his lips. "Yes, very hard." The smile dropped away as he returned to the sketch. "Hard and blushing, with a pearl of precome at the tip, dazzling in the light." 

"Almost as if…" Nicky pushed out his lips, fake-thoughtful. He raised his eyebrows. "Was I about to come?"

"Yes, and I need you back there." 

"So do I." 

"Please, Nicky." 

"I seem to remember my own pleas fell on unyielding ears."

"Nicky, the light is fading—" 

"How frustrating." 

They locked eyes again, Nicky impassive, Yusuf coolly annoyed. Neither moved. 

Yusuf cracked first. " _Please_ , Nicky," he said. 

Nicky swallowed, his Adam's apple sliding down and up his exposed throat. He sighed. "Someone should draw _your_ eyes when you look like that." With resignation he tightened his grip on his cock and stroked himself, jerky and fast. 

"That's it," said Yusuf. "Yes. Touch yourself until you almost come." 

"Gah," said Nicky. His face spasmed, then his hand dropped away, revealing his flushed, straining, perfect cock. "Hurry," he grunted. 

The pearl of precome was back, balanced on the tip of Nicky's head. Yusuf dropped his charcoal pencil, fumbled for a sharper one, the better to catch the specular highlight. "My god, you are beautiful." 

"Are you done?"

"Almost." Yusuf touched his pencil to the curve of Nicky's knee, filled in a bit of shading at the ankle, tapped the divot of Nicky's hip, and—yes. He was done. 

He held up the sketch. Nicky's eyes flicked from it to Yusuf. "Marvelous. Now come here." 

"Just a moment, my most patient love, I want to mix the color of this light before it fades." 

For a moment, he thought Nicky was going to get up and leave. But Nicky only stroked himself once more and then went limp on the bed, eyes forward once more, resignation heavy in the lines of his body. 

Yusuf let the sketchbook fall to the ground. The slap made Nicky jump; there was just enough time for a delighted grin to spread across his face and then Yusuf was on top of him, thighs straddling him and hands pressing his shoulders down into the bed. 

"Have I told you yet today that I love you?" Yusuf said between kisses, his tongue tracing the path his pencil had taken along Nicky's lips and jaw. 

"I don't want you to tell me you love me," Nicky panted. He seized a fistful of Yusuf's curls, none-too-gently yanked Yusuf's ear up to his lips and whispered, "I want you to suck my dick." 

Yusuf's own dick twitched at that. With a last nuzzling kiss at Nicky's ear, he shuffled down the bed to lie between Nicky's thighs. 

The drop of precome on Nicky's cock had smudged during their embrace but a new pearl had replaced it, sliding wetly across the shiny purplish crown. Yusuf allowed himself one more moment to admire it: gold-tinged silver in the quickly fading light, small and mundane and fleeting and beautiful. Then he bent his head and licked it away before parting his lips to swallow Nicky down. 

The throaty sigh of relief from above him curled Yusuf's toes. He swirled his tongue and sucked eagerly. For Nicky, soft and spent and squishy, was just as beautiful as Nicky hard and hungry, and the light would be decent for another hour yet.


	2. 1875, daguerreotype, albumen silver print

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe has a Dagguereotype machine and a vision. Nicky is once again his muse and model. Featuring references to Saint Sebastian, early photography and possibly some light blasphemy.

"A few hundred years ago," said Nicky in a low, thoughtful voice, "this would have made me very uncomfortable." 

Joe was at his side in an instant. "Are you all right?" he whispered into Nicky's ear, running a soothing hand down his naked thigh. 

"Oh yes," said Nicky. "It's not the pose." He flexed the fingers of his hands, bound over his head, to prove that he hadn't lost feeling in them. "It is only…" he shrugged his shoulders as best as he was able. "The blasphemy." 

Joe chuckled, looking only a little embarrassed. "Too much blasphemy?"

Nicky leaned his head forward as far as he could. "Just enough, I think." Taking the cue, Joe met his lips in a kiss. "After all," said Nicky when they broke apart, "it  _ is  _ San Sebastiano." 

Joe chuckled, his eyes twinkling. "I'm not exactly treading new ground here. Botticelli knew what he was doing." 

"So do you," said Nicky in that understated, matter-of-fact way that always pierced Joe's heart deeper than any arrow. 

They were in a forest clearing that both of them had made quite sure was abandoned before they began their current project. Nicky was naked, his wrists tied together and held suspended over his head by a rope looped around a tree branch. 

About four meters in front of him was Joe, fiddling with the lens of his—well, of Booker's—Dagguereotype machine. Booker had mostly used it to take moody landscape images. A single self-portrait was his one exception, and only so he could practice forging albumen silver prints, but Andromache had found the print and ordered the machine destroyed along with any photographic proof of their immortal life. Joe had volunteered to get rid of the machine, but he and Nicky had an art project of their own to undertake before carrying out Andromache's wishes.

"Almost ready." Joe was bent over the Dagguereotype camera, the upper half of his body hidden by the black cloths protecting the light-sensitive silver plate from unwanted exposure. 

Nicky said, "Are you sure you don't want—"

"No," said Joe. 

"I do not mind."

"We don't even have any."

"I could make some, quite easily." 

"No." 

The corner of Nicky's mouth curved. "It might be less blasphemous, with the—" 

Joe tossed off the black cloth and stood up straight. "I am not shooting you with arrows, Nicky," he said. 

Nicky looked at him with an expression so soft it almost had Joe diving for his sketchbook. He resisted the urge: He could sketch Nicky to his heart's content at any time, but they couldn't hide this wonderful machine from Andromache for long. 

"If we get this right," said Joe in a gentler voice, "we won't need the arrows." 

Saint Sebastian was a third-century Christian martyr who miraculously survived execution by a volley of arrows. Since long before even Joe or Nicky was born, Christian and Mediterranean artists had found inspiration in the image of a young, beautiful man tied to a stake and pierced by arrows. Several of their fifteenth-century Florentine friends had painted their own takes on the scene; Joe himself had tried his hand at it, with Nicky as his model, and the painting now hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, listed as "Unknown artist." 

Joe and Nicky had their own opinions on the reason for the saint's enduring popularity, and they knew from personal experience they were far from alone. 

"The arrows were always a metaphor," Nicky agreed, his eyes fixed on Joe. Then, in a devastatingly conversational tone, he added, "Now come here and pierce me." 

Joe grinned. "You'd like that, wouldn't you," he said, voice low. 

Their planned pose for their Dagguereotype was this: Nicky tied to a tree, in a pose intentionally reminiscent of the saint's Renaissance depictions. But they would replace the saint's iconic arrows with their own bodies: Nicky's cock, hard as an arrow's shaft, only a few inches above the place where an arrow so erotically pierces the saint's thigh in Botticelli's masterpiece. And Joe, after beginning the camera exposure, standing behind Nicky, between him and the tree, arms around Nicky's chest and stomach and their hips flush as if "piercing" him from behind. 

No actual penetration would be happening today; that would be too messy and involved for a scene deep in the middle of a forest. That hadn't stopped Nicky from claiming that Joe only organized it this way because he couldn't hold still long enough while actually buried inside Nicky for the machine's long exposure time to capture their image. 

Now, Nicky gave a little shrug, the best he could with his hands tied above his head. "There must be shafts, Joe. What is San Sebastiano without his shafts?"

"If you need a little help with your shaft," Joe said, "you can just ask." 

"I am your canvas, my love." 

Joe smiled. He touched the top of the Dagguereotype machine, then let his fingers slide away as he walked toward Nicky, his bare feet crunching over dry leaves. 

Except for the bob of his larynx as he swallowed, Nicky made no motion, his eyes impaling Joe as Joe stopped in front of him, their feet almost touching. 

Nicky could incline his head and kiss him, even bound as he was; he had the give. He didn't. 

Joe raised his chin, appraising. They were almost nose-to-nose now. 

Then Nicky's eyes rolled up as Joe took him in his hand. 

Nicky's cock was soft; he had been half-hard earlier when Joe tied him up, but neglect and the slight cold had undone their progress. 

Now the two's foreheads collided, slightly too hard to be pleasurable, the pain of the touch making Joe dizzy as he turned his head to press his cheek to Nicky's cheek, his shoulder to Nicky's shoulder, chest to chest and hip to hip and thigh to thigh. Nicky twitched in his hand and Joe wrapped his other arm around his waist, just above the full curve of Nicky's strong ass. Nicky tried to kiss him and to bite his own lip at the same time, with the result of dragging his top lip over the corner of Joe's mouth and beard. 

"That's it," said Joe. "You look incredible, Nicky."

Nicky was fully erect now but he could be harder. Joe pulled away until only his hand remained on Nicky's cock, then pinched the tip and let his hand fall away. Nicky whimpered, confused and annoyed, then drew in a sharp breath as Joe went to his knees. 

Joe cupped Nicky's balls in hands held up like a supplication, then ducked his head and sucked Nicky's cock into his mouth, slow and steady and deep enough that he almost couldn't breathe. 

A moment, to let Nicky shift his stance and brace himself. Then Joe slid his lips off, back down to the tip, flicked his tongue over the slit poking out through the foreskin, and sank down again. Nicky gasped; they were off. 

Joe sucked him until his lips were slippery with spit, until Nicky's breath became ragged and his balls, still tenderly held in Joe's hands, tightened and drew up tighter against Nicky's body. He should stop now, Joe knew. Nicky was close. 

Still, he kept going… until Nicky said, "Joe…" 

Joe turned his head up to look at him, making his eyes as big as possible, his lips at the base of Nicky's cock. Half-daring Nicky to just take his release from Joe's mouth, art be damned. 

"Fuck," said Nicky. "Stop, please, I can't—" 

Joe pulled off with a wet pop and sprang to his feet. He dropped a quick, wet kiss on Nicky's flushed nose. "I love you so much, thank you my love." Then he bounded to the machine and hovered his finger over the activation button. 

"Ready?" 

"Yes, yes!"

Nicky's head braced against one of his uplifted arms. His brows were drawn, his lips parted, his eyes shut tight. His cock hard and jutting, straight as an arrow. He was perfect. 

Joe flicked the switch, then sprang back toward Nicky and slipped behind him, one arm going around Nicky's chest, the other reaching lower to encircle the base of Nicky's cock. 

"Now," Joe murmured into the skin between Nicky's shoulderblades, "Don't move for sixty seconds." 

Nicky groaned through his nose, and obeyed. 

Joe counted the seconds by the beat of Nicky's heart, two beats per second, loud and fast as if it were right under his skin. 

When Joe finally moved, Nicky shuddered violently, as if he had just barely been containing himself. 

"Wait, wait," said Joe. He darted back to the Dagguereotype machine to check the plate, trying to push past his own cock's interest in Nicky's heavy, steadying breaths, but he couldn't stop the moan that fell from his lips at the sight of the image burnished onto the plate. 

"My God, Nicky, it's perfect." 

"Show me later," said Nicky, tugging on the rope. "You're not done here." 

"You're right." 

Joe replaced the plate with a fresh new one, carefully wrapping the first in a protective covering. Then he reached into the bag resting next to the tripod and pulled out a long, thin object. 

"I had an idea for an alternate pose," he said. "In case we decide we miss the arrow imagery." 

Nicky's eyes dropped to the object in his hand. It was an arrow—except that instead of a sharp arrowhead it was tipped with a round, blunt leather ball. 

Joe held it up, tapping the ball side. "I thought this could go in your mouth." 

Nicky's lips curved down even as his eyes lit up. "You bastard," he said. 

Joe came to stand in front of him again. "Open up."

Nicky did, his eyes never leaving Joe's face as the leather ball went in. With Nicky's lips and teeth closed over it around the shaft, it almost looked like he had been shot in the mouth with an arrow… or like the arrow was a stand-in for—

A shiver of giddy delight ran up Joe's spine as, for the second time, he dropped to his knees. Nicky was still hard— "Good, Nicky, so good," Joe whispered into the crease of his hip—but he needed a bit more attention if he was going to last for another sixty-second exposure time. 

He pressed his cheek against Nicky's hip and looked up. Anyone else might have thought Nicky was coldly furious, but Joe knew better, even as he felt that bright, hard gaze like a bolt through his heart. He kissed the hair between Nicky's hips and said, "Your eyes are more piercing than any arrow." 

Something softened in Nicky's eyes. It only made the sharp edge of his gaze burrow deeper into Joe's flesh. 

Joe bowed his head, slid his tongue over the top of Nicky's cock. "Just a little longer." With his lips pressed against Nicky's length he said, "You have the patience of a saint." 

The noise Nicky made was more growl than moan. God, this would make a beautiful print. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my defense, I did not come up with the idea that Saint Sebastian's arrows are erotic homosexual metaphors!   
> Just [look at Botticelli's San Sebastiano](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandro_Botticelli_054.jpg). This dude absolutely knew what he was doing.   
> Thank you to Emjee for encouraging this :D Okay NEXT time Nicky gets his revenge with a camera, I promise!

**Author's Note:**

> In the next chapter, " _1983, photograph, silver dye bleach print_ ," Nicky takes up photography and unintentionally gets his revenge. 
> 
> I only have the two chapters planned, but if anyone has thoughts about other ways to misuse art supplies I am listening :D 
> 
> I'm on Tumblr at EmotionallyCompromisedRobots


End file.
